The interface and how the program interacted with the nanites was mainly Deckard’s portion of the project. Meredith had been responsible for getting his vision to its current state, and it was something that she had done exceedingly well.

It was Deckard’s turn take over once more now. The baton had been passed back to him.

And not that Meredith needed it, but it left her with a little bit more time to concentrate on all the problems that the other companies were creating for them. The law was on their side. Unfortunately, some sixth sense he had never experienced before was telling him that wouldn’t matter in the slightest.

These companies were out for blood, and they wouldn’t stop until it had been drawn. The only question was, how far everyone was willing to go?

Logically speaking, Koarden Enterprises had far more money and resources than any of the others. Even if they combined together to work against them, it would be hard to match the power his mother had accumulated over the last few years.

She had her own plans for handling the situation and it required all the attention that she could give it. That was why he was so glad that they had finished the portion that really required her constant attention on the project.

Nevertheless, it was his time to shine and bring everything to life.

Body

Enhance+/Strengthen+/Ambidextrous/Smooth Nerves/Health Studies+/Surgical Training+/Next Page…

Intelligence

Processes+/Threads+/Additional Core+/Next Page…

Mental

Dysmorphia/Self Image/Know Thyself/Meditation+/Music+/Next Page…

NetConnection

Hacking+/Programming+/Avatar/Firewall+/Breach+/Program Design+/Next Page…

Technology

Electrical Engineering+/Mechanical Engineering+/General Engineering+/Civil Engineering+/Technical Ability+/Fast Hands/Modifications+/Cybernetics+/Next Page…

Nanite

Overload/Build More/Upgrade/Self-Repair/Healing/Next Page…

Learning

Absorb Data Prism

It was more than a little barebones still, but the framework was there. He had added a few subcategories to everything that he thought would be useful for himself, more so than for regular people.

Despite that, just having the menu in front of his face for once and connected to the nanites gave him a sense of real accomplishment.

There was a lot that needed to be done, but he was making progress.

The interface that worked with the nanites was still a work in progress in certain areas, but it was up and running. That meant he could start concentrating on one problem at a time.

His mother had even set aside additional server resources for him so he could run all the simulations he needed for it. All the information he was gathering was being collated into their appropriate categories for later assimilation. There was too much for him to keep track of, and the automated simulations helped him become even more efficient than he already was.

It also kept him inside and away from the growing unrest that existed outside the walls of their protected campus. The campus was a large area where well over a dozen buildings that belonged to Koarden Enterprises all resided. Each building belonged to a different branch of the company, whether it was research, production, administration, or simply a large dormitory.

They had it all on the campus.

It wasn’t the only one they owned and operated, either. They weren’t known as the largest company in the world for no reason.

Normally, the corporations coming against them were simply asking for a glorified suicide and nothing more. The only reason things were different this time was because they had all banded together.

It was going to be a long-drawn-out affair, and as long as everything stayed above board, he was sure things would be fine. Except, they had already proven that they were willing to get their hands dirty.

The time was coming for his mother to start reacting in kind, and he couldn’t wait to see what she did.

The other companies all tended to play to the public perception, something that didn’t truly matter when Meredith and Dereck Koarden owned the company almost entirely by themselves. That was why the other companies had been attacking their rights to the patents. It was really the only angle they had to work with.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

At least, it was unless they really wanted to get their hands dirty. However, that was a step that they seemed leery of taking just yet. Once they started attacking the facilities and people, there was no turning back for real. There was no telling how Meredith would react, and they all knew that.

The massive amount of power she wielded from the shadows and in the financial world had scared them silly.

Unfortunately, as everyone knew, fear only worked for so long. That was especially the case when they were all ganging up together and creating a sort of echo chamber where they could work themselves into a frothing mess.

That was what his mother and everyone who was helping her were dealing with at the moment.

Deckard took a moment to pull up the cameras monitoring the front gate of the campus and felt a phantom surge of emotion. It was something that had begun happening to him since they had implemented the nanites. They were better at managing his neuro-chemicals, at least kind of.

He was now getting these phantom surges that told him there should have been some sort of emotion there, but that was all. The biochemical solution still wasn’t good enough to naturally produce all the chemicals that a normal body did.

It was a step in the right direction, but that was all.

Deckard closed the screens that showed camped-out masses trying to boycott the company with their vitriol-spewing signs.

He didn’t feel like leaving his office anymore, but he also didn’t really want to work on the project at the moment either.

The problem was, he didn’t really have any hobbies. There hadn’t been a need for them up to that point in his life. He was always busy learning or getting used to a new body or limb, working on some new project. There was always something to keep him busy.

This was the first time that he could remember where he simply didn’t want to do something. It made him wonder just how much the nanites were already changing him. Was this another of their effects? Was the reason he was always on the go because of how badly his brain’s chemicals had been mismanaged?

It was a scary thought, but also one that required some thought. It had allowed him to achieve great focus for years on end, and while it might have been accidental, that was still a very nice item to have in his proverbial back pocket.

There were no signs that he would have issues concentrating in the future, however, normal people had limits on how long they could focus for. Up to that point, that had largely not been the case for him.

Either way, this was the first time he had been forced to think about something as mundane as a hobby, and he had no idea about where to even start.

All he ended up accomplishing was staring out the fake window for five minutes while his mind went in circles like a glorified hamster wheel. Eventually, he decided to do a few searches on the net and see what others did as hobbies. He immediately dismissed all items that required other people, as he had no real friends, nor access to the outside world at the moment, in any case. Besides, with his fully cybernetic body interacting with normal people had always been a challenge.

He moved on past those items to the hobbies that he could do by himself.

Listening to music, Reading, Playing Video Games, Watching a Movie, or some other form of entertainment. The list continued on, but those were the four that grabbed his attention right away. He had heard some of the researchers and scientists that he occasionally interacted with talk about these items before. He had never been interested in them before, something that he was now realizing was a little odd.

Now, each one refused to let his attention go until he learned more about their respective subjects.

Over the next day, Deckard proceeded to do a deep dive into each of them, learning everything he could before actually trying anything out. A lot of information that he learned from one subject was applicable to the others as well. Just as with programs and parts, not everything was created equal. There were good books, games, movies, and music, and utter trash ones as well. However, that didn’t necessarily mean they were bad. Some people apparently seemed to enjoy them because of their trashy quality.

It would be up to him to decide what he liked and why. He couldn’t let others decide for him.

Unfortunately, by the time he finished learning all of that, he was ready to get back to work. Actually, exploring his own desire and interest in a hobby would have to wait until later.

For now, he was in the middle of something important, whether or not, it would ever see the light of day was another matter entirely. He was willing to continue working on it, and even finish it. Letting it go public, out to the people that were causing them all these problems right now, was another matter entirely.

He was having serious second thoughts on that particular course of action.

Gradually, the program began to change and become refined as additional items were added or taken away. Still, it had no name. It was easier that way. With no name, it couldn’t be found in the database of official projects. And while no one would ever dare to question Meredith or even Deckard about what they were doing, that didn’t mean people didn’t snoop.

All the programming that Deckard had done before bringing it to his mother needed to be redone. It was useful in creating the initial idea, so it was by no means useless. Once the actual medium of distribution had been settled on, in this case, the nanites, much of the code needed to be tweaked.

He was fine with that; he had already known that would be the case when he wrote it. The initial code had been almost more of a proof of concept in some ways. Now, what they were doing was creating the real thing.

The real breakthrough though, came when Deckard began exploring potential hobbies again. In this case, it was video games. As he began playing them, he learned that many of them already included mechanics similar to what he was trying to do. A few of the games did it really well, most did not, but they almost all had something he could use.

The entire idea was to help people get used to their body’s or to help them heal, learn, and become better in some way. None of that could simply be handed to them on a silver platter though, they needed to work for it. Implementing an experience system would have been an interesting choice, but it held too many ways of being exploited.

No, he needed another way to do the same thing.

It did give him some ideas though. Before playing those games, he had never even realized that he was trying to recreate something that already existed in a somewhat similar form. That realization brought with it a distinct understanding of where his own lacking knowledge in general topics existed.

It was something that he needed to fix.

He had created this project to help humanity, but at the end of the day, what did he really know about them? He didn’t live among them and was practically a different species at this point. Everything in his life had been created so he could mimic them, and yet he had never really learned how to actually do that mentally.

All of that led into his next hobby, virtually exploring the world. He couldn’t and didn’t really even want to leave the campus. Yet, he found that he needed to learn more about people and their daily lives.

Each afternoon, and night, where before he would have worked on minor projects, something that would have given his brain a break, he now explored the world. He didn’t need to sleep, though he still did occasionally.